DX 10 and PCi-E (speculation)

[AltTabbins]

I would like to have a good converstaion about if videocard companies will support DX10 with their AGP videocard solutions. Please keep in on subject and stick to facts (not what you heard from so and so on another forum, please keep it to what we KNOW from microsoft.com and official announcements). If this turns into a Red vs Green fight then mods, please lock it.


Question: Do you think that companies make DX 10 cards for AGP?

FACTS:
-AGP videocard prices have actually risen since pci-e was introduced.
-Pci-e has expanded to include socket 754 and a few P4 socket motherboards, opening new doors for users who did not have a socket 939 processor.
-Companies are making watered down versions of their cards for AGP. It has been proven that this has nothing to do with the bandwidth of AGP bus, but is obviously because they would like you to upgrade. (look at the gainward 7900 gpu in a "7800gs" body.. it has all the features and is identical to the 7900gt, but in an agp form).
-Microsoft has officially annoucned that dx10 will be for vista only.
-Microsoft has announced that in order to use vista to its fullest, you will need a videocard that supports dx10.

 

[pxc]

Do you think that companies make DX 10 cards for AGP?

I'd say it's likely in the budget and mid-range segments. Don't hold your breath for a high end AGP DX10 card.

You only need a DX10 card for Vista to play DX10 games or possibly for future applications that use SM4.0 hardware acceleration. Non-gaming "full" use of Vista only requires SM2.0 (DX9.0) for Aero Glass acceleration. PCI-E has an advantage over AGP for bi-directional bandwidth.

 

[psychoace]

FACTS:
-AGP videocard prices have actually risen since pci-e was introduced.

-Companies are making watered down versions of their cards for AGP.

1st fact: Reason AGP video card prices are rising because the lack of demand.

2nd fact: Most likely both companies are now more finacially and mentally focused on the pci-e line that they don't want to spend much money on a dying format. So they take chips that might not cut the grade on there pci-e product line and throw AGP a bone with a card. It is more costly to them to have 2 formats to worry about. Having two manufacturing lines running the same product but the only difference is the bus is not smart buisness thinking. So your at the mercy of money sorry to say. The only time companies here what we want is when it will profit them and having the fastest card in agp is not on there list of profitable sources.

Also I like how you title this topic with [speculation] but then tell us to only state facts so then it isn't speculation if it is a fact.

 

[Trimlock]

DX10 will most likely make its way to the AGP format as a very low end solution, where heat isn't an issue

 

[Elios]

1st fact: Reason AGP video card prices are rising because the lack of demand.

2nd fact: Most likely both companies are now more finacially and mentally focused on the pci-e line that they don't want to spend much money on a dying format. So they take chips that might not cut the grade on there pci-e product line and throw AGP a bone with a card. It is more costly to them to have 2 formats to worry about. Having two manufacturing lines running the same product but the only difference is the bus is not smart buisness thinking. So your at the mercy of money sorry to say. The only time companies here what we want is when it will profit them and having the fastest card in agp is not on there list of profitable sources.

Also I like how you title this topic with [speculation] but then tell us to only state facts so then it isn't speculation if it is a fact.

the AGP and PCIe chips are the same ones now that both ATi and NV have bridge chips

 

[psychoace]

the AGP and PCIe chips are the same ones now that both ATi and NV have bridge chips

Remember the 6800gs? It was just a 6800 ultra but crippled by having some of it's pipelines closed. It wasn't crippled because they wanted to make that product line but because those chips in the production line didn't test up to the standards of a 6800 ultra. So instead of throwing them away they put them into the 6800gs line and still made money. Amd does this with there cpu's and I am sure Ati does it as well. Also yes they have bridge chips but it cost extra to put on a agp bus because you are taking up a whole production line for a less profitable product line. Nvidia is already running behind on keeping product in stock so think if they had to give up a whole line just so they can make high end AGP cards they would be out on a lot of money. So because they are using a line or two for the 7800gs they have to raise the price of the cards because the money they are losing out on keeping there main pci-e cards in stock.

 

[Cypher19]

Considering that we've seen only like one or two AGP cards this generation, from a purely business/trend standpoint I'd say that PCIe D3D10 cards are extremely unlikely. From a technical standpoint though, they're just plain undesirable. Because of the memory virtualization that the VDDM uses, there is going to be a LOT more data movement between the CPU/hard drive memory and GPU memory, so the more bandwidth available (i.e. PCIe x16), the better.

I don't think they will make AGP D3D10 cards, and I hope that they don't.

 

[AltTabbins]

^^^ agreed.

If you look at current PCI cards, there are quite a few that support DX9. The only issue is that they are all low end cards at best. The most powerful card available is a 5500.. People say that there isn't that big of a difference between agp and pci-e x16, but the difference is the same between a pci and agp x2/x4... \

Another thing to think about..
A HUGE part of the marketshare only have pci slots. Pretty much any low end DELL/HP/Compaq have either a pci slot of a pci-e x1 slot. There is still a HUGE amount of computers being shipped at this very same moment that only have the pci bus.. does that mean that ati/nvidia are supporting pci? Sure, but you are going to have to settle for either a 2 year old, 5 generation old card that was "high end" at its day.. or settle for a 6200, 5200, Ti or 5500 from green or a 9200, 9250 or 9200se (gasp) from red. As far as comsumer PC's go, I think that a VAST majority of computers now a days (workstation computers, small business cpu's, grandma rigs etc) are pci.

With that in mind, why don't red or green make a pci card? Im sure they could squeeze more juice out of the old pci slot with maybe a 6600 or 6800nu?.. Maybe they could water down the cards so they would work better in the pci bus..


sound familiar?... Agp will soon be in the same catagory as pci.. I give it another 3 generations of cards before agp is obsolete and I give it 2 years before something faster than x16 pci-e comes out.. pci-e x32?? its inevitable.

 

[psychoace]

Another thing to think about..
A HUGE part of the marketshare only have pci slots. Pretty much any low end DELL/HP/Compaq have either a pci slot of a pci-e x1 slot. There is still a HUGE amount of computers being shipped at this very same moment that only have the pci bus.. does that mean that ati/nvidia are supporting pci? Sure, but you are going to have to settle for either a 2 year old, 5 generation old card that was "high end" at its day.. or settle for a 6200, 5200, Ti or 5500 from green or a 9200, 9250 or 9200se (gasp) from red. As far as comsumer PC's go, I think that a VAST majority of computers now a days (workstation computers, small business cpu's, grandma rigs etc) are pci.

All the computer's you just listed are not gaming rigs. So why would they make gaming cards for them? Also corperate workstations will never be upgraded for 3d and there video card is most likely onboard not a pci card. Grandma/parents rig is a small portion of any market to be upgraded gaming or otherwise. So the fact is neither pci or agp are a cost effective market for nvidia or Ati to dip into.

 

[AltTabbins]

All the computer's you just listed are not gaming rigs. So why would they make gaming cards for them? Also corperate workstations will never be upgraded for 3d and there video card is most likely onboard not a pci card. Grandma/parents rig is a small portion of any market to be upgraded gaming or otherwise. So the fact is neither pci or agp are a cost effective market for nvidia or Ati to dip into.

Ahh, but how many times a day do you check here and see "what is the best PCI card I can get" threads? I remember my first pc.. It didn't have an agp slot (this was 5 years ago) but agp was available.. I was planning on using the pc for gaming, but didn't know much about computers so I thought that just because it was a celeron 1.2ghz PENTIUM that it would be a good gaming rig.

Hords of people purchase $400 computers and expect them to be at least decent for gaming.. They are just mis-informed and dont know enough about computers to realize that just because you bought a BRAND NEW computer, it doesn't mean that it is going to perform well in games like back in the day before graphics cards when all that mattered was if your pentium was 100mhz or 233 mhz.